Experiencing very long synchronizations after program 'updates' or when a Thunderbird profile is transferred to another computer. What should take a couple of minutes at most actually takes about two hours. This is a long standing problem with BirdieSync ~ we have used the program for over 2 years.

Even after both devices have just been synchronized and you attempt an immediate re-sync, the calendar takes far longer than the contacts - minutes (20) vs seconds. There about 900 contacts and 700 calendar events.

After update to 3.0.2.2 the program purportedly 'lists' and 'prepares' but still deletes all the existing entries and rewrites them again even though the entries and configurations are identical/unchanged on all devices.

You said that you transferred Thunderbird profile to another computer.
Was it a profile already synchronized with BirdieSync ?
Did you copy this Thunderbird profile to the other computer ?
Do you synchronize several Thunderbird sources with BirdieSync ?
Do you synchronize a local calendar or a remote calendar ? (ICS, calDAV, etc.)

Just to be clear as to terminology.
I only synchronize 'with' BirdieSync as the default local 'calendar' on android devices.
Otherwise, I am talking about using BirdieSync to perform synchronization between Thunderbird on a computer with contacts and calendar on an android device.

>Was it a profile already synchronized with BirdieSync ?
The profile on the desktop was synchronized with the android device(s) using Birdie.

>Did you copy this Thunderbird profile to the other computer ?
I then copied that exact profile to a laptop and synchronized to the same android device(s). Birdie rewrote everything.

>Do you synchronize several Thunderbird sources with BirdieSync ?
I synchronize only one (and the same) Thunderbird profile with BirdieSync.

>Do you synchronize a local calendar or a remote calendar ? (ICS, calDAV, etc.)
Local - the profile's Lighting calendar with android device(s).

One additional note on the Calendar sync. Sync times are inconsistent - immediate resync can take 20 minutes and resync between the same devices a day later can take less than a minute.

> I then copied that exact profile to a laptop and synchronized to the same android device(s). Birdie rewrote everything.

Do you use the same BirdieSync server installed on the desktop, or do you use a new BirdieSync server installed on the laptop ?
Do you often copy the Thunderbird profile directory from one computer to another ?

If several times, you reconnect your Android device with the same PC to launch a synchronization, after the first synchronization, do you still have long synchronizations ?

While Thunderbird and your Android device are connected, would it be possible to build a log archive with BirdieSync menu "Help/Archive logs...", then send BirdieSyncLog.zip to support(at)birdiesync.com ?
Thanks.

>Do you use the same BirdieSync server installed on the desktop, or do you use a new BirdieSync server installed on the laptop ?

There is no 'old' or 'new' server. Birdie is installed on both Windows devices. I use the BirdieSync server which is on the same windows machine as the Thunderbird profile that I am trying to synchronize with. When the profile is transferred to the laptop I use the BirdieSync installed on the laptop. When the profile is transferred back to the desktop I use the BirdieSync installed on the desktop.

So I presume that the issue may be that Birdie forces a complete rewrite because there is a 'different server' on the two machines? That is hard to avoid if you travel.

>Do you often copy the Thunderbird profile directory from one computer to another ?

Yes. Every time I travel.

To be clear - I use Birdie to write contacts and events to android devices - I do not allow nor do I want Birdie to write to the Thunderbird profile. For me, the 'Back up your data' warning = copying the profile from 1 machine to another. I only want Birdie to update changes to the android devices. That should be a very short process if you only change 10 contacts and 10 events. Even shorter if there are no changes.

>If several times, you reconnect your Android device with the same PC to launch a synchronization, after the first synchronization, do you still have long synchronizations ?

There are actually 2 issues, and both produce long synchronizations ~

1. Long syncs because Birdie wants to delete and rewrite everything instead of just the changes ~
these are the 2 hr+ syncs when the profile is moved to another machine. After Birdie does that once with the computer<>android pair, Birdie only has a 'problem' synchronizing events. Contacts has never been an issue;

2. Intermittently long syncs between calendars ~
After the 2 hr sync, Birdie no longer tries to rewrite all of the contacts and events, but even an unchanged calendar can take up to 20 minutes to sync - but sometimes takes only a minute. I have not been able to discern any pattern.

The fact that you use 2 different BirdieSync servers could potentially lead to additional resynchronizations but it may not be a normal behavior.

Let's suppose that you synchronized your desktop Thunderbird with your Android device. If you then copy the Thunderbird profile on the laptop with a new BirdieSync server, and it's the first time you synchronize with it, the synchronization will be executed from scratch. This first new synchronization will take time. In theory, if BirdieSync configuration is the same as on the desktop, in Combine mode, and everything runs OK, BirdieSync should be able to identify identical items on the Android device and in Thunderbird and not need to transfer items from one source to another. After this first synchronization is performed, next synchronizations should be rather quick compared to the initial synchronization.

But if there are a lot of operations (creations and possibly deletions) during this first synchronization on the laptop then it would be necessary to investigate to understand why BirdieSync considers these events as different on Android and in Thunderbird although they should be considered as identical (sometimes there could be small differences between the items). In this case, after a synchronization, build a log archive on the first PC and after the copy of Thunderbird profile and the execution of a new synchronization on the second PC (you can actually cancel it after the preview of operations is displayed), build a second log archive on the second PC and send them to support(at)birdiesync.com.

Note that if you select "Replace" synchronization mode for a specific calendar, it will delete all events on the Android device and replace them with Thunderbird ones. In this case, that could explain why BirdieSync fully resynchronizes (and doesn't examine if items are identical or not on both sources). That would also impact the other computer since all the events would have been replaced and created again on the Android device.

Apart from this, it is also recommended not to enable the search for duplicates while synchronizing. This slows down a lot synchronization, because BirdieSync needs to compare one by one items when looking for duplicates.

To disable the removal of duplicates:

On the PC, open BirdieSync server window and click on the button with the double cards icon on the right of the main synchronization progress bar. The button should then become greyed out.
You can also disable the removal of duplicates with BirdieSync menu "File/Remove duplicates".
For more information, you may refer to BirdieSync help (menu "Help/Help...") in section "Synchronization/Remove duplicates".

Actually I usually prefer to get all possible information in logs and not clean them. Sometimes useful information can be found in the past. But it should be possible to directly edit the logs in the archive, however.

Not an issue. I am back to my original machine. Copied the profile from the laptop to the desktop machine. First attempt at sync wants to replace over 900 contacts out of 1300. Will do the deed overnight and forward the log file(s) via email.